Day 6

Yup, the tent rustling and packing up noises begin around 7am.  Knowing I won't be able to get any sleep with the noise, I roll out of my tent at 7:30 and slowly start making oatmeal.  The guy from DC tells me I can definitely make it to Pittsburgh today.  I scoff at this.  No thank you.  Plus I can't really show up early since my reservation is for Wednesday.  It turns out this guy tried to make a reservation at the place where I'm staying but couldn't get in.  Hmm...I wonder how I did?  Maybe there's less demand on a weekday?  I get ready slowly and chat for a while with one of the other bikers and by the time I get on the road it's about 10:30.  No matter, I'm not in any rush.
Around 11:30 I stop in Ohiopyle to get something, hopefully a muffin or croissant, to supplement my hearty oatmeal/date/walnut/chia breakfast which, somehow, was not enough.  I go to the general store and spot what appears to be an oversized muffin in saran wrap, but on closer inspection turns out to be an oversized whoopie pie.  Close enough. I go out onto a bench overlooking the bridge and water and enjoy my snack and the scenery.

   After finishing off what I assume to be at least five daily recommended caloric intakes worth of whoopie pie, I get back on the road and catch up to a cyclist meandering along at a leisurely pace.  I offer a friendly "hi there" as I pass him, which is taken as an invitation for a full fledged conversation and I feel compelled to slow down and converse with him.  Doug, he tells me, is from Uniontown and is a bit of a talker.  Unfortunately, I can't undertand 60% of what he says, though I can't quite tell if this is just because of his accent or also the result of a major injory he sustained at the age of 14 (apparently he was in a coma after being run over by a barbershop, or at least, that was the best I could make out after 3 attempted clarifications).  He tells me he's on disability which I guess means he doesn't work at all?  Seems crazy, but maybe that's not the case.  I am eager to push forward and diplomatically tell Doug I'm going to speed up so I can get to lunch before I starve.  A slight exaggeration given that I doubt anyone has ever starved to death within 45 minutes of eating a whoopie pie the size of their head, but at this pace it will take me forever, and I'm running out of conversation topics.

   By about 1:15 I'm in Connelsville, which I expect to be a bit bigger based on Doug's description (or at least what I understood of it).  The trail actually goes into the residential part of town, which is unusual, but I turn off and cross the bridge to get to where the map claims I will find a wealth of eating establishments.  The town seems almost deserted, but I pass by "Connelsville Canteen" which boasts its open status with several large signs.  I decide to keep it as a back up and hold out for "Arch's cafe" which I saw on the town map and which I picture to be some quaint little eatery, hopefully with outdoor seating, where I can enjoy some sort of delicious sandwich that comes with chips and a pickle.  Alas, when I get to the edge of town I find that Arch's cafe appears to be more of a sports bar advertising chicken wings as the featured entree, and that it's not necessarily open.  I give up and head back to the Canteen, which actually looks quite lovely upon entering, but apparently only serves coffee and baked goods.  Not really a canteen then, are you?  Luckily, across the street is one last option, La Canela, a mexican place where I find a cheap combo platter lunch special and am fed chips and salsa immediately upon sitting down.  Nothing is particularly good, but it's not disgusting either.  The cheese in my enchilada has a very distinct flavor which I have trouble placing at first, but then realize it tastes *exactly* like that orange "cheese" that squirts out of a can.  The waiter is super nice and offers to fill my water bottle, which he does with filtered water and ice.  What luxury!
I head back through town and discover the place I should have stopped for food; right on the trail is a little cafe/concession stand with picnic benches along the river.  Oh well!  From here I pass the KOA campsite at mile 92 and briefly consider stopping already since it is so nice out and appear to rent kayaks right at the campsite.  But I don't really want to leave 60 miles for tomorrow, so I continue on.  At mile 99 is the first of the free sites with Adirondack shelters which look really nice.  I decide to go on to at least the next one at mile 110 since it's still early, and then decide whether to stay or carry on to mile 124 so I can camp at the site in a cemetery that the DC guy told me about this morning.  Around mile 104 I become quite bored of biking and decide that sleeping in a cemetery isn't worth another 20 miles (plus, if the zombie apocalypse happens to start tonight, I will be much safer at mile 110).  I start to look forward to being alone in my secluded little campsite in my shelter and am actually a little disappointed when I show up and there is already a group camping there.  But they seem very nice, and they tell me they came in from Pittsburgh just for the night and are biking back tomorrow.  I become hopeful that this could be the camping experience more like I had imagined, bonding with my fellow campers and drinking beer around a campfire.  I tell them I'm going for a swim, which I do and then head back to clean off and change in my shelter.

   I'm hoping they'll come invite me to join them or offer me a beer or something but they don't.  I decide to be proactive and go offer some food to share.  Unfortunately I don't have much to work with, but I figure it's the gesture that counts.  I walk over with my styrofoam container of leftover hushpuppies from my Crabby Pig dinner 2 days ago.  "Can I offer you all some delicious leftover hushpuppies?" I ask as I walk up to their picnic table with them staring at me.  They politely decline and don't proceed to offer me anything, so I awkwardly leave with my hushpuppies and go sit by myself at a table feeling dejected.  I know you don't win friends with salad, but hushpuppies?  C'mon!
At least near my table there is an adorable groundhog foraging for food who peers up at me every so often to make sure I'm not trying to kill him.  Maybe he would enjoy some hushpuppies?  After writing in my journal a while I decide to start preparing a dehydrated meal.  I go fill my bucket with water from the spigot and realize that there's no explicit indication it's been treated with iodine (like there was at all the wells on the C&O).  Afraid of another hushpuppy rejection, but deciding that explosive diarrhea would be far worse, I overcome my social anxiety to go over to my neighbors and ask if they know whether the spigot water is drinkable.  One of the guys tells me he's been drinking it with no problems, and a girl who has joined them tells me they have an extra ear of corn and do I want to join them.  "Sure!" I say, quite likely a little too happy to finally be included.  I sit on a stump around their campfire, watching the 5 corn cobs roast over the fire.  They all know each other from going to college together and seem really cool.  The guys, Drew, Brian, and Nick all work in film ("Drew does those Hollywood movies" one explains.  It doesn't sound like a compliment) and Lindsey runs an art studio.  Apparently it was a somewhat spur of the moment idea to come camping, so the 3 guys biked out the previous evening at 11pm, in the pitch black.  Lindsey drove in with some more supplies (like corn!) today.  Brian tells me about some ride in Pittsburgh that just happened where everyone rides around in their underwear and he and Nick tell me about how they tried to bike the trail from Pittsburgh to DC once, in March in the freezing cold.  They didn't make it too far.  Drew's light stopped working during the ride to the campsite last night and his friends made no effort to wait for him. He got distracted by the big dipper and ran into a fence he tells me, showing the baind aid on his knee to prove it.  These people are crazy.  I like them.
They tell me about some bluegrass/banjo/hipster thing that happens every Wednesday night in Pittsburgh (which I do end up going to the next night, and it is amazing.)  They also tell me that when I get into town I should bike around Point State Park and get a photo of the mile 0 plaque.  Excellent!  This I will definitely do.   They bike off to go explore the "beach" nearby (really just mud leading into the water) and I turn in to read and go to bed.